


bunk or no bunk

by templeofshame



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, Twitter, interactive introverts, talk of outing and coming out and labels, top/bottom jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 10:49:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16386467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/templeofshame/pseuds/templeofshame
Summary: When Dan decides a joke is funny, he rarely makes it just once. And this joke… it was too Not Funny for too long to be kept to themselves.





	bunk or no bunk

**Author's Note:**

> thanks @waveydnp!
> 
> Bingo prompts: Twitter, coming out

“What do you think?” Dan asks, looking over his tour bus notes. “Two lounges’d be good, yeah? You think the bunks were big enough?”

“Big enough for what?” Phil asks, raising an eyebrow. He’s peering over the same notes, sat too close to be professional, but it’s just Marianne and she expects it by now.

She clears her throat. “We just need a decision. Bunks, or no bunks?”

Phil catches Dan’s eye as Dan stifles a laugh. Phil keeps his laugh to his eyes; poor Marianne doesn’t deserve this. “The bunks are alright,” he says, then waits for Dan.

“They fit our excessively long legs,” Dan agrees.

“And then there’s no bedgate busgate nonsense. I’ll move forward with that, then.” Marianne stands immediately, pulling out her phone. She’s always poised to do four or so things, no matter how undivided her attention seems.

“So long as I get the bottom bunk,” Phil adds in the direction of Marianne’s shrinking back.

Dan snorts. “You heard it here first,” he says to the room, now empty but for the two of them. Phil smacks his arm.

*

When Dan decides a joke is funny, he rarely makes it just once. And this joke… it was too Not Funny for too long to be kept to themselves. That’s how Dan seems to see it, anyway. Phil is focused on the way his body feels and all the potential ways it could be feeling worse very soon as they prepare for the yoga challenge.

“What do you think about top/bottom jokes?” Dan asks. He tries to ask these things when he anticipates something, rather than ruin footage with something uncomfortable. It helps that Phil’s the type to laugh at jokes he knows are coming.

“On camera?” Phil turns to Dan immediately, forgetting that he’s actively putting on a sweatband until it catches awkwardly on his ear.

“Yeah. We talk about liking men now.” Dan’s voice is steady, solid, but there’s a glimmer of doubt in his eyes. It’s the same kind of confidence that was there when Dan sat down to film “Trying to Live My Truth,” the kind that maybe Phil should have called out before it came to backtracking. Maybe that’s what Phil should be doing now.

“We do.” It’s a fact. And if top/bottom jokes are the next step for Dan… He just needs to know he’s ready. Or Phil can prep damage control.

“It’d just be general, not about our sex life again. More about intrusive questions. Like… ‘no bunk’ for a new era.” Phil sucks in a tense breath, but Dan keeps his voice steady, sure. “But we’ll keep it on our terms.”

*

When Phil first typed the words “no bunk,” it wasn’t about denying Dan. It was just how he rejected intrusive questions, playfully noping out of them so that maybe, possibly, people would notice they were, well, stupid and inappropriate. Just another taking Anja to Florida or 27 Nope Street in Nopeville. And maybe it would have stayed there if it hadn’t been for Charlie.

Charlie wasn’t exactly in the dark on matters of Dan. Charlie had once been a place for Phil to turn, to find support through gritted teeth. That took Phil months to fully understand, that Stephen wasn’t like Dan. Him being “in the picture” didn’t push everyone else off the map. So Charlie had knowledge, and resentment. It both stung and ached for Phil to think about the way what had once been closeness could transform, over time, into something threatening. But a month after Dan’s Twitter feud, there was no denying that’s what it was.

The memes were a sort of awkward, ominous laughing too long, and maybe not just at the joke. Enough to make people wonder about a layer of humor beyond the surface, enough to feel mocking. Charlie didn’t need a response from Phil to encourage him; he was just going to roll on his own momentum until he burned out. Even if his insinuations were muddled, there was a photo of Dan and a couple tweets about bottoms and the general sinking feeling that anything Phil could do would dig the hole deeper. So all he could do was wait. And watch other Youtubers pile on, or even ask him to explain.

“He’s…” Phil couldn’t explain it to Dan, what Charlie was doing, why Phil didn’t hate him for it.

“That’s not friendship, Phil. Sure, he’s bitter, he’s dealing with shit, definitely. But he’s taking it out on you.”

Phil sighed. He couldn’t argue with that. “Well, I can’t unfollow him now.” Like you did, he didn’t need to say.

There’s no closure in just waiting for something to die down. But time passed, and die down it did. And only one tweet vanished: “if you have to wonder if someone is a bottom. they are. thats it thats all im saying.”

*

Phil has to admit, the way Dan stares knowingly into the camera, his cheeky shrug, it’s like he’s perfected the art of “no bunk.” Maybe it’s what they’d call a power move: Dan takes the age-old intrusive question and uses it to roast the askers.

For Phil’s part, he’s focusing on the yoga when he says that the bottom seems easier, but still ends up on top.

But watching it back, and watching the fan response, he feels good about it. They’re not hiding from the topic they can’t outrun; they’re taking control for a minute. People are laughing with them. And more than anything, Phil can see what that means to Dan. To take the risk and not even have to think about backtracking, while Phil can still feel the whiplash from last month.

*

Dan hates labels. Dan knows that people stalk his Twitter favorites. Phil didn’t have to wonder for a second about Dan’s intention; it was 100% an accident.

The thing that came next couldn’t quite be backtracking. It was a year after the Charlie incident, and Dan was working on when and how he dug his holes deeper.

“I can’t say nothing. It wasn’t ambiguous, it wasn’t someone else. It’s like…” Dan was breathing heavily, talking fast. Phil wanted to calm his mind, tell him everything was fine, but he couldn’t dismiss what Dan was feeling. The panic was a stage he needed. “It’s like I’ve come out as something I don’t even…”

Phil pressed his shoulder firmly against Dan’s, getting as close as he could without dislodging the laptop on Dan’s lap. Which, come to think of it, he should have. Phil moved slowly, gave Dan a chance to stop him as he closed the computer and moved it aside.

“Sure,” he said, sliding into Dan’s space. “But I bet no one really thinks that. They’re freaking out because it’s fun, because they want something to talk about.” He had a leg over Dan’s by then, a hand in his hair, enough touch to keep Dan grounded in a moment of comfort. “But it’s a long way from ‘I like vagina’ to ‘I like being fucked.’” Phil nudged Dan’s shoulder then, got Dan to look him in the eye. “Even when they’re both true. Among all the other things you like. And none of it needs a label.”

Phil could feel tension leave his body as Dan slotted his fingers in between Phil’s. He’d said something right. “I’ll tell it in the liveshow. But I can’t be defensive, or no-homo, and I don’t want to be… bottom-shaming.”

“You’ll tell the story. You being a fail, it’s on brand. You don’t even have to say you’re not, not gay, or a bottom. Just the favorite was an accident. A funny one.”

“It _is_ kind of funny.”

Phil found it in Dan’s face, the hint of a smile, the belief that it would be okay. “It is. It will be.”

*

“They’re literal bunks, it’s too perfect.” Somehow, Dan’s still on a top-or-bottom high, looking for the next opportunity. Dan feels powerful, and Phil feels nothing short of proud.

“You just want me to pick the bottom again.” Phil isn’t exactly looking forward to the bus itself, with its sudden movements and lack of privacy, but there’s still a rush that comes with it, with being the sort of people who can tour the world together. This time, with a gaming lounge and lots of hotel stops to look forward to.

“You choose the bunk you want, mate. We’ll have no bunk shaming.”

“You could pick the bottom too! Or somewhere not right--” Phil points out as Dan tests out the one directly over his choice.

“Nope. The universe would rip in half.” Dan pauses. “They know we’re trolls, not trying to ‘come out’ or something in bunk code.” He says “come out” like it’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard, and maybe it is. It’s just not their style to make closets and labels and sexual tastes anything other than a complex, tangled thing they sometimes joke about. And if Dan did once talk in a video about a sexual taste he is quite skilled at, Phil won’t bring that up.

“I’ll probably switch around anyway,” Phil says. Dan winks, and Phil keeps going, because that’s what feels normal now. “I’ll get sick and think I can find somewhere better.”

“Or you’ll miss me.”

Phil tilts his head as if considering. “Will I?”

“I’ll make you. I’ll ban you from the gaming lounge.”

Phil poses as if to run, to beat Dan there. But when Dan jumps down from his newly-claimed bunk, Phil loses his balance and flails, pulling himself up with whatever parts of Dan he can grab.

“I know!” Dan says, ignoring the frantic hands and Phil’s struggles to stay off the bus floor. “In gaming videos. When the screen’s divided across. There’s games that do that.”

Phil’s on his feet now, looking at Dan blankly.

“You know. A cheeky top-bottom joke. It’s giving the people what they want.”

Phil watches the corners of Dan’s smile, the way he bounds toward the front of the bus, the mischief in his eyes when he glances back at Phil. _I bet it is._

**Author's Note:**

> say hi on [tumblr](http://templeofshame.tumblr.com/post/179348843000/bunk-or-no-bunk-rating-t-1692-words-written-for)?


End file.
